I Love working on Projects

Sometimes there are a million thoughts chasing each other around in my head. That's usually the moment I get an idea for a project. When I decide to bring something to life I look for the right collaborators because after all you're only as good as the team you get to work with.

'OK, Just SAY IT' With TARA DEACON (2017)

THE IDEA

Sometimes we don't dare to say what's on our mind, because we are too scared of the confession we want to make. Maybe in this moment the truth is just too big, the white page too scary, or we don't want to hurt another person, so we stay quiet. Tara Deacon and I began this small collaborative hand lettering project to create a space to say the things that need to be said, even if it hurts.

THE PROJECT

One night at a friends dinner a lof of thoughts and confessions started to buzz around the room and with the help of a bottle of red wine we started to write them all down. Because our friends loved the idea so much we decided to create a small zine and an instagram account to make it an analog and multi-digital project. However the process of writing down the confessions in hand lettering is a true moment of significance in this project.

THE TEAM

This is a collaborative project of South African and Berlin based illustrator Tara Deacon and me.

'Make A Compliment' IN COOPERATION with THe Michelberger Hotel (2016)

“I can live for two months on a good compliment“ (Mark Twain)

THE IDEA

Being nice keeps the world spinning. In our daily life and especially in the German culture we rarely take the time to tell each other when we did something good or what we like about someone. We take a lot of things for granted. This projects focused on the most simple gift in the world you can give another person: A compliment.

THE PROJECT

This project happened in collaboration with the Michelberger Hotel in Berlin. During the project employees were invited to bring their favorite staff member to our mobile photo studio to make them a compliment. In one week we shot over 90 people catching the dynamics and relations between all of them. There were smiles and tears and many compliments made that got lost in the daily Hotel business. The compliments and interviews were then illustrated and transformed into a Michelberger Hotel Agenda for the year 2015, which was then distributed as a Christmas present to all employees.

THE TEAM

'WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?' An Art Installation At Zeppelin UnivERSITy (2013)

the IDEA

Based on my bachelor thesis about the generation Y I've developed an art project, where me and some friends started to brainstorm all kinds of questions that were popping up in our millenial minds.We came up with about 200 Questions and installed them during an overnight guerrilla process inside the main building of Zeppelin University. The aim of the project was to show in what kind of insecure state of life the members of the generation "Y" are constantly living.

THE PROJECT

We also wanted to say "goodbye" to Zeppelin University by asking some specific questions that did relate to our three years of studying there. I guess that in a certain way this was our way of saying "fare well" to three years of fun, learning and challenging moments. We came to University with lots of questions and left with even more, because that's what Zeppelin University taught us.

For the project the mixture of the question was especially important to us. The questions covered funny, political, and big philosophical or social discussions. In the process of inventing them we dared to ask questions we had wanted to ask for a long time, but never tried to.

THE IDEA

Friedrichshafen, where Zeppelin University is based, didn't have many concerts. For someone like me, who grew up going to concerts every week, this was a devastating shock to find out. After working for the students radio station Welle20 for a while me and some friends decided to found our own concert-concept: The Wellenreiter Concert series. We started organizing small concerts in off locations in Friedrichshafen neither students or locals were likely to visit by themselves. The first concert took place in a small independent cinema and was sold out, the second concert was held in a the greenhouse.

Organizing those small concerts in off locations was a great opportunity to apply all the theoretical concepts we learned during our studies of Communication and Cultural management at Zeppelin University.

PROJECT TEAM

Wellenreiter concerts started as an idea and project by Hannah Bahl, Kilian von Dallwitz and Jürgen MuckenschnabelArtists: We focused on upcoming German speaking artists: among them Die höchste Eisenbahn, Nicolaus Sturm, Florian Horwarth

'The Snack Book Machine' AN ART INSTALLATION AT Zeppelin University (2010)

"The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television." (Andrew Ross)

Studying at Zeppelin University meant spending your daily life in the university buildings. One night while working on a project me and some friends started thinking about "healthy snacks“ you would like to have while studying. During this thought process we came up with the idea of a book vending machine.

A few weeks later we bought an old vending machine on Ebay, refurbished it ourselves and contacted „Reclam“, one of the most important German publishers, who decided to fund the project. We installed "Snacky“ at the university and since that day people can buy a book for the same price of a coffee. All the money goes straight to a charity project that supports people with analphabetism.

TRANSFORMING A MCDONALDS Restaurant With AN Interactive ART PERFORMANCE (2010/2011)

We live in a fast society. We communicate, eat and text on the go and rarely take the time to focus on one specific thing. This art project aimed to confront people about their speed of life and consumption of fast, processed food.

With the artistic approach of the Fluxus movement and Hartmut Rosas theory of deceleration we installed an art happening at a McDonalds in Friedrichshafen. We slowed down the McDonalds by serving people burgers on real plates, in an original dinner atmosphere, which had a huge impact on the daily McDonalds customers, who usually don‘t spent more than 8 minutes inside the restaurant.

With people eating from plates we expanded the McDonalds stay to 30 minutes, which lead to a lot of systemic confusion in this fast food environment. We also made a film about the project, interviewing people about the acceleration of their life. With the performance we influenced the regular visitors to think about their speed of life and started some discussions about time in general.

This performance was part of my studies in "Communication and Cultural Management" at Zeppelin University, where we had to organize an art or communication group project in two semesters.